PSI Woodworking TSGUARD Table Saw Dust Collection Guard
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Our Price: $231.93 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of PSI Woodworking TSGUARD Table Saw Dust Collection Guard
Customer Review: Works As Advertised
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had this hooked up to my contractor's saw for over a year now. I screwed it into the floor of my shed, then attached it to the side of my table saw's extension table. I attached the dust collection hose directly to the blade guard. It works. It might not sense the thickness of the wood I'm putting through and automatically adjust... nor does it go down automatically (not sure if it's designed to). But it lifts automatically with a touch of my finger, and it locks in position after tightening the knob. I'm happy.Customer Review: Works very well
Summary: 4 Stars
My unit arrived in good condition. I have used it on a table saw bolted to the ceiling for 18 months and my only complaint is that it gets in the way of lumber taller than 9" and my head when I want to check alignment from above the blade. The dust hood and suspension assembly can be removed but this takes a minute and is therefore not convenient. To solve this I see I can change the TSGUARD to the floor mounted option where there is a built-in swivel at the top of the main mast tube that will allow it to be easily pushed out of the way.
This unit operates easiy and the counter balance works well. The reason it is not a 5 star is the 2-1/2" flex tube size restricts the air volume, in this regard the Exaktor with 4" tubing is better -but $220 better? Perhaps this has as much to do with the 1-1/2hp dust extractor I use being marginally sized? If I were to do this all over I wonder if I wouldn't simply build something from scratch as there is nothing particularly complex about the components.
Update June 2010 - 6 months ago I upgraded my dust extraction to a 5-hp cyclone unit by Clearvue and I moved the TSGUARD to floor mount. The 2-1/2" flex tube does restrict air but if the guard is close to sitting on top of the wood being cut I do not see any dust escaping, only larger wood fragments thrown forward from the blade on some dense but brittle hardwood. I have 7-foot rails on the table saw fence so the reach of the TSGUARD when floor mounted is just over 6-feet. It took some steel diagonal bracing on the vertical member to keep the horizontal tubing even close to horizontal. I don't think any reasonably priced design could correct this amount of flexing, but to fix this I added a hook and chain from the ceiling above the blade which supports the horizontal tubing right at horizontal. For the times I want more blade access I unhook the horizontal tubing and push it away. All in all I am very happy with the TSGUARD. In writing this it occurs to me that the 45-degree bracing I used on the mast is actually doing most of the flexing, that if I stiffen this bracing I might remove much of the flexing. I will have to play with this some more.
Customer Review: Worth the money.
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently installed the PSI on my Delta contractor saw with little effort ~ 1hour. The unit itself works fine especially considering the low price ($162.80 delivered from Amazon). Piping is made of heavy guage steel and is very sturdy. The unit works well at reducing and or eliminating the fine dust being thrown into your face. I have it hooked upto a Delta 50-760 1.5 hp DC piggybacked with my table saw dust port. When cutting sheet goods (plywood,mdf,particle board,hardboard, etc) the PSI is excellent at containing and eliminating ~95 % of the dust. When cutting thicker stock (1.5 or greater) the efficiency went down as expected but the unit was still very useful in stopping the dust from being propelled into the air towards your face and lungs. Efficiency probably went down to the 65% efficiency range for the larger particulates (>3-5 microns)and to about 88% for the smaller particulates (And yes I am qualified to estimate percent capture of fine particulates due to the nature of my degrees,training and work experience). This drop in efficiency is due to the fact that you will loose the "vacumn effect" as air is being sucked in from all sides of the unit due to it being raised above the table - thus reducing the "suction". This will occur no matter what unit (exaktor, biessmyer, excalibur, shark guard, etc)is used. Key is max air flow (cfm's).To help offset this pressure loss I "choked up" the 2.5 ports to 4 inch ports where possible. Not as good as if all the ports were originally sized 4 inch but this helps increase the effiency of the unit by increasing the air flow. (Yes the airlow is restricted at the reducer but it stll increases the over all air flow).
Several reviewers hit the nail on the head. With a little simple tweaking this unit performs well and is certainly worth the price. I can not justify spending almost $300 more for another unit.
Some of the minor adjustsments made were: converting port size to 4 inch (also need to use matching 4" hose); sealing the swinging back stop (pictured in red)with packing tape along the seams, sealing the swing front stop with packing tape along the top downward portion of the seams - make sure you do not seal it in a position that would interfere with or make contact with blade !!!-; cut both interior and exterior tubes to the fit of your table extension (once the "nested tubes" or adjusted to your table, lock in place and carefully cut both tubes at the same time, then file or grind to remove any burs. In my case it reduced the air turbulence\friction travel by 14 inches, which may not seem like much but the pressure gradient change over a foot can be signicicant depending upon the cfm.s of your collection system; also did the same custom cut of dust hose to reduce distance traveled and efficiency loss due to friction and turbulence.
The height adjustment \counter balance arm works well and effortlessly. Very easy to move up and down. The entire assembly swings out the way when needed but mine is a little stiff. Hopefully it will loosen a little with time - but not a concern either way.
Now on negative side - many are the same as other reviewers -
written instructions are worthless, use common sense and the visual depictions to guide you; packaging is horrible, box bottom torn badly, box looked like it was in a fight, one item (worm gear clamp)was missing -aggravating but did not hinder assembly; several areas of small scratches on tubing do to the items bouncing everywhere during shipping - again annoying but not bad -it is in a shop not my house - it is going to get scratches anyway.
Overall good unit and exceptional value for the price when compared to other units. I would by it again.
Customer Review: marginal value received
Summary: 3 Stars
I have a Powermatic 2000 with a zero clearance insert hooked up to a 3hp cyclone dust collector, and don't use the supplied blade guard. Because I was still getting dust off the blade, I thought this type collector would do two things: 1) catch more dust, and 2) provide some additional safety. It helps with the safety factor (unless I have it swiveled out of the way), but is only marginally effective in gathering more dust.
Although connected in the recommended fashion to the dust collector, in practice, dust exiting the blade continues to move primarily horizontally across the board towards the user - NOT sucked vertically into the collector. This is because the unit conflicts with either the fence or the miter gauge*, effectively preventing the unit from riding close to the surface. As I spend more time working with it, a better way to operate may become obvious, but at this point, the dust collection improvement isn't significant.
NOTE *: the unit can be horizontally adjusted which would change the relative position with the miter gaure/fence and allow lowering it to the wood's surface. Doing this might help improve the collection effectiveness, but adds a step to the process.
Regarding the shipping: the unit came poorly wrapped/packaged - taped and torn, and material barely contained within the box. Although the pieces were all there (except one hose clamp), some were scratched. Others have previously commented on this - with no apparent improvement by the mfr.
Regarding the construction: seems to be sturdy, easy to adjust the vertical movement; wouldn't pay more for one of the higher priced units if they are similarly effective. I have mine mounted to be able to swing away from the table, and it easily handles the movement without problem.
The 3-star rating is based on the limited additional collection perceived, and the poor shipping method.
Customer Review: psi dust collector
Summary: 1 Stars
for the money, the PSI dust collector does not even come close to collecting even 10% of the saw dust.the instructions were incomplete.i hope i can unload this on somebody for ten to twenty dollars, but i doubt it!!